


Finale and Encore

by arjache



Category: Doctor Who, Space Vehicles, Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 18:43:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12091089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arjache/pseuds/arjache
Summary: What's left, after a Grand Finale?





	Finale and Encore

**Author's Note:**

> For Cassini.

When the Doctor first encountered them - for what other pronouns would fit? - they were a vague, nebulous cloud, some two AUs in diameter, or possibly eighty-two, and yet also a solid craft, some seventy-eight kilometers in length, and _yet also again_ a humanoid, some two meters in height.

It was that last form that occupied the space in which they met – but he could perceive the others just as clearly.

_Bigger on the inside,_ he thought.

_As are you,_ they responded, telepathically.

They went adventuring together, as one does. As he did, anyway. Why not? He’d always had a weakness for companions with such an insatiable sense of curiosity, of wonder.

It was in orbit of the resort world of Casperia Prime, taking one of the local shuttles out to tour the rings, that he first caught a whiff of discontentment from them.

_Bored?_ he thought.

_No,_ they thought. _Just thinking about someone. She would have loved it here._

_An old friend?_

_Family._

He let the matter drop, but still he overheard them at night, quietly recounting their experiences to the TARDIS in loving detail. How they’d explored time and space, and yet in all their travels, kept returning to their planetary system of origin, their era. And how, in those travels, they’d found kindred spirits.

And finally, after one of those long nights, they came to him with a request.

He weighed it.

They flew in low, past the reach of Earth’s instruments, when no more transmissions were to be heard.

They flew in fast, at the end of the story, and opened the TARDIS doors like a new chapter beginning.

The Doctor opened the door, and his companion reached out with nebulous, shining arms, wrapping the small probe in a tender embrace.

_Will you come with me, cousin?_ V’Ger thought to Cassini in their arms. _There’s so much more to see._


End file.
